Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
    Sometimes life gets so hectic it’s hard to keep up. I bet you can relate to that. Haven’t you ever wondered where the week went, or spring for that matter, where the heck did spring go? Some of it’s a matter of perspective, how the days fly by as we get a little older, and hours turn into months and skip right by the days and weeks. 
    So that’s my excuse for forgetting to put an ad in the paper last week for a yard sale we were going to have this past weekend. My bad, I admit it, I simply forgot. So we changed the date to this weekend, July 16, at the shelter at 10 a.m. You really don’t want to miss this, and I encourage you to wait until 10 a.m. because if you come early and we’re not all set up you might miss some of the very best bargains! (Weather permitting of course!)
    If you have never been to the shelter, go out the Ludlow Road, past Walmart, and take your second right (about 2 miles). That is the Callaghan Road. The shelter is just a little over a mile in on the right. Big sign out front says Isabel Hess Animal Refuge Farm.
    The yard sale will be set up outside, but we would love to have you take a tour of the shelter while you’re there. I’ve heard people say that they just “can’t” go to a shelter, any shelter, because they feel sorry for the animals and want to take them all home.
    We, of course, want you to take them all home, but we don’t want you to feel sorry for the animals because they are well cared for, loved, tended to, doctored if needed, and given the best possible care until new homes are found. I think you will discover that the shelter is a happy place, beautifully decorated for both the public and the pets, immaculately clean, bright and cheerful. When you’re sitting around on a Saturday wondering what to do, the shelter could be a destination for you. A few minutes to pet the animals is not only good for you and your family, but good for the animals too.
    I do have to laugh because we have so many volunteers who like to come to the shelter that sometimes we almost wear our animals out. Our adoption rate is about triple what it used to be, thanks, in part, to Facebook and our wonderful network of friends, so our dog population is down and when we have one dog and a dozen volunteers, the dog gets walked a lot. When he starts looking at us like “oh no, not again” instead of “woohoo, another walk”, we put the volunteers to work doing something else!
    Come to the shelter for the yard sale, but plan on staying for a visit if you’d like! If you have items that you would like to donate to the yard sale, you can drop them off at the shelter, call the shelter if you need someone to pick your items up (532-2862), or drop items off at the Varney Agency, 9 Katahdin Lane (across from Tim Horton’s). We don’t ordinarily take clothing because we have no place to store clothes where they will be clean and dry, and we can’t accept any electronics because it often costs us more to dispose of them if they don’t sell than we would make on an item. We apologize for being picky!
    If you are really interested in helping the shelter, also keep in mind that, as much as I hate to say it, Sept. 10 isn’t that far away and that is our big fundraiser of the year – Rockin’ the Doghouse in Monument Park. We are very excited this year to have four live bands, many more games for the kids including a “Minute to Win it” challenge, an art exhibit, craft tent and much more. If you can do any kind of crafts, please consider donating an item for this event. If you are a business that would like to sponsor this event, sponsorship letters will be going out shortly. And we are going to need about 30 volunteers to run games, man tables, serve food and so forth.
    Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with us, get up to date photos of new pets available for adoption, put on lost and found requests, and follow fund raisers.
     Our mailing address is P.O. Box 548, Houlton.